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EDIT: Ha! Great job with that pistol on the right there ChatGPT.

houtex here. I know I don't post much like I did in the old forums. I'm almost a backgrounder these days, what with life being what it is for me compared to earlier. Things Change(tm), as life is what it is. But I suddenly had a need to say it, and I feel like it's long overdue too. So I'm saying it: Thank you. To everyone. Sincerely and heartfelt. ❤️ To everyone who puts up with me and my weird characters, like Brawling Humiliator, the sometimes sorta but not quite tanky thing what otherwise is pretty useless in a team... but without can't get further. Or Total Dependent, who has no offense, but will help buff with Ice. Or the whip only MasterMind. Or just me messing it up but trying anyway as I sometimes do. And any of quite a few more goofy things that shouldn't exist/I should fix/stop, but do because I said, and you never disappoint in letting me have the fun trying. To everyone who kept the dream alive, so that we may today enjoy the City. And therefore everyone who *keeps* the dream alive. GMs, server people, coders, and of course the donors, that last to which when things get better I swear I will become a member of. Hell, to be honest, I'd like to be well off enough to just take that over and let us all just enjoy the City, would that I could, and I *absolutely* would. But alas, not just yet. And to anyone and everyone else, for any of a plethora of reasons. You know who you are/why, and even if you don't, well, you're included anyway, because we're all a family in the City. 🙂 City of Heroes has been a large part of my life since I came aware of it back 6 months after it came out, as it may have been for some of you all out there for the whole life of CoH, and when it went down, it was hard. Then we're back, and its being around has been a blessing for sure. It calms me, even when I'm in the middle of battle. It soothes me, it... it's a sort of therapy so I can forget, just a little bit, the RL that I've inherited and sometimes just don't wanna deal with. When I can get in, that is, which sometimes is a bit of time between. But then I get in, and all is well for a little while. So yeah. Nothing tragic goin' on, mind, just an overwhelming need to get this out. All that and more. All this sappiness... ...directed at you all. Even just for reading to this end. Hugs, everyone. And one more time: Thank You All. See ya in the City. houtex

The standard of quality in this thread is ridiculously high! Here's my Street Justice/Ninjitsu Stalker: Night Warden

Another out from under the floorboards - "Marrowwrought":

Just.... don't. It makes work for the GM's and we err on the side of intent when we look at characters. If I see someone with a name from another IP I get twitchy. If the first result on my google search shows a character from a movie like these do it's pretty much a slam dunk for a generic. Then you have to appeal and explain exactly why we were wrong.

I don't believe it's actually possible to balance all combinations of powersets for all archtypes, and have them all perform the same by whatever metrics you choose to use. I do believe it's possible to make them fun to play, and that is where the rubber meets the road for me. Heresy #1: I do not care about clear times. Not one bit. Heresy #2: I do not care how fast or slow I finish a TF. It's not even on radar for me. I never invite people based on what powersets / archtype they bring. I invite people for fun. Bring the player, not the character. It hasn't let me down yet.

You misspelled Mastermind. It's a common mistake.

Another refinement in a long line of nightmares: "Night-Haunt"

Crumpet sees you! Hide!

"John Spartan you are fined five credits for repeated violations of the IP copyright statute."

i think they should remove them and put up statues to people like Arcana. Seriously. Heroes of the people, that have made things better.

I have a dark goddess from beyond the stars: The Goddess of Tentacles

Where’s my merits for reading your complaint??

If you think that brutes are less survivable and have less aggro control than scrappers, you’re sorely mistaken. Brutes get the same armor values as scrappers but have higher caps and higher HP, therefore they are at least as survivable as Scrappers. All brute armor sets have a taunt aura, that cannot be said for scrappers (scrapper damage auras don’t have a taunt aspect to them, but some sets, WP and Shield for example, do get a taunt aura). Additionally, brutes get single target punch-voke and access to Taunt instead of Confront. All of these things mean brutes have more aggro control than scrappers. If you think that brutes are squishier than scrappers, it’s most likely because you catch more aggro on a brute.

I use a mod that turns off the war wall visual effect, and it sometimes allows me to see interesting things just outside of the zones. This shot was taken looking over the north war wall in The Hollows. According to the "Bicentennial" plaque just below, this is showing the damage in the part of the city where the "Outbreak" occurred.

If people want extra slots given to them by opening up the option of using Swift/Hurdle/Rest as proc mules, I wish they’d just be honest about it and state in the OP that they are looking to receive three additional enhancement slots per character.

Hello all, just added a huge new feature which is timeline graph view with full functionality for zooming and live updating during combat. With that a lot more features which are listed in the discord channel! Please enjoy!

no but also could we get Beta server mini-events where Homecoming does silly things like remove aggro cap/hit caps for like a week just for funsies and to also help people understand why we don't do that

You do not want to know what the penalty is for not knowing how the 3 Sea Shells work.

I asked an AI to look over the forums to try to understand HC's stance on copyrighted character allowed homages and disallowed replicas, and then asked it to look over your post, give a summary of the possible problems, and then make recommendations for you. Here's what it said:

Brutes are NOT flimsier than Scrappers. But Brutes are not in a very good place right now. Tankers keep getting buffed, and that is the go-to armored AT. Sentinels got a nice rework. They are decent. They were in a horrid spot. they are now.... There are meh. Especially after 50. These are my opinions. I have Tanked Recluse in MoMLTF twice successfully on a Dark Dark Brute. But that does not make it in a good place. That just means I did to the Brute what NASCAR does to a chevy. And people have played that build (at least one person) and swore they died all the time. I never think I am that good a player. Maybe they were that bad? I have run tons of Sentinels. DPS with a gimmick. and meh DPS. I am currently fixated on Corruptors. But I do not like to heal or buff. I like to Corrupt. So I run Dark and Ice. Dark has great heals but it is centered on me and applies a -regen. debuff. Corrupt. Corruptors are the only "S" class AT in CoH. Every Corruptor, regardless of powersets, is an "S" class pick for a team. My opinion. Depending on Powersets, AT, and opinions most non Corr toons are A to C. Less kind players immediately assign Ds and Fs to certain powersets and/or ATs. Is it fair? Is it right? Do not look to "balance" the game through change. You will have a interesting fight.

Among other balance reasons for not allowing set enhancements to be slotted in free auto powers this prevents the noob trap of slotting a stealth IO in a power that cannot be turned off. IIRC this was allowed once upon a time and it caused no end of problems on escort missions.

Vendetta

Just going to say if they were to add more powers to the forms, it would make PBs and WSs even more slot hungry.

Playing Galaga.

Not so much a set character as a vehicle for driving around trying stuff. Though I have given her a backstory. Deka. Or you may see her as Deka-chan. To help me juggle names less as I try stuff I didn't get to see way back from Live. This is Deka as a AR/Devices blaster. Also have a tanker variant I am driving around. MA feels great on tankers. Prior iterations were going around on Excelsior as.. anything you can think of. Still have a few renamed for storage. Originally an experimental construct made by Arachnos. Rebelled against 'her' creators. Though technically the person inside is real, and not AI, they don't remember their past as such. Make no mistake, there is no original flesh left after digitization. The brain of model 10 is a single saltine sized chip inside.

Your character name: Burden of Sin *(Factorio is the red tag owner of the base SG, same account) Your Global handle: scruff Are you the owner?: Yes! Are you the builder?: Yes! Your base’s name: Scala Naturae The shard it is located on: Everlasting The passcode for entry: BIRDHOUSE-33864 The category your base is entering under: Other / Misc. ( Home and Living design, wasn't sure where to put this - feel free to relocate its category if Misc isn't the place for it 😳) Any additional information you wish the judges to know beforehand: An astral, modernized sanctum far-removed from Paragon City or even the familiarity of your very home-dimension! Curious sprites and housekeeping Fey are abundant in this place as groundskeepers - be kind to them and they shall be kind to you. This is my first base I've worked on and I have a lot of historical progress pictures of its evolutions over the last year or so - the exterior used to be a cityscape before a roleplay event shifted it into a more extra-dimensional space! Make sure to check out the garden if you like greenery, you can reach it through the upstair balcony through the master bedroom or the little patio exit on the first floor. It was designed to be a fully walkable and relatively natural-feeling floorspace while including comforts, recreation and necessities in a fantasy gothic-industrial presentation. 🕊️ 🖤 (ps. the 'flickering' on the front door seems largely unavoidable due to reflection-funnies with the space biome sky lighting, sorry!) I owe a lot to Dropout, Bootstrap, Squidget and ScarredSilencer as mentors and motivations for this home project! Thank you, Everlasting 💖

Oh, I doubt it’s any of those. The request was on-topic; it was about a patch, which would be the only place to put a costume fix, really. And re-iterating a request for a costume fix (not a new costume) which a lot of people have asked for is hardly “complaining”, except perhaps to the most thin-skinned of critics. Nor was there any “call for accountability”, as if some offense had been committed; just a reasonably worded request for a cogent explanation. Then again, some people read way too much into things they disagree with. So if that is why people down-voted it, they might want to re-assess their reactions. That’s just a suggestion, of course.

I would make the NPCs for bases customizable (same as creating a costume for your character or a critter in the AE). This would allow players to have superheroes or villains within their base instead of normal NPCs. My main reason for this is to create NPCs to represent teammates who have passed away over the years.

the quest for balance always makes me inwardly groan. That quest, in itself can lead to bigger problems and ruin the game experience. It leads to homogeneity and reduces the features that make a particular AT feel unique and different to others. It satisfies one need only - the selfish need to make a toon that isn't necessarily powerful but interesting to play to be as powerful as a different one. Often that is based on perception only, which exacerbates the issue. I'd also argue it is a wider symptom of mistrust of the devs "they don't know what they're doing making X so UP/Y so OP" when clearly the devs know better than anyone the issues the game faces. The best advice I can give is don't worry about performance so much enjoyment you get from playing the game and characters you make

You're not forgetting them. They're in Hide. It makes it hard to see them. 😁

So long as you have different definitions of fun, and some folks who know how to bend the invention/incarnate system playing alongside those who feel out basic enhancements, let alone the solo vs. team dynamics, 'true' balance will be impossible. Let's look just at the 'pure' melee archetypes: Tanker: On basic Single origin enhancements, with no knowledge of 'best' powers, power pool picks: Durability: ★★★★☆ Damage: ★★☆☆☆ Single origin enhancements, knowledge of best powers, best power pools: Durability: ★★★★★ Damage: ★★☆☆☆ With inventions, pools, epic/patrons pools, incarnates all highly tuned: Durability: 👑 Best in game Damage: ★★★☆☆ Tanks start easy to use, end easy to use. The 'problem' is that they can max out what they are best at pretty easily, so the only thing you gain from all that work around invention investments is to make a tank that can withstand the end game bosses or the enemies meant to trouble multiple teams at once. Tanks also don't scale well on teams, as with two you start to be redundant if you play to protect or survive. Literally nothing can last better than a fully built out tank. If you love looking out for friends, this is the most fun you'll find. If you play to damage...? It's okay, but slower than any other. They do WAY better against swarms of enemies than against single targets. Brute: On basic Single origin enhancements, with no knowledge of 'best' powers, power pool picks: Durability: ★★★☆☆ Damage: ★★★★☆ Single origin enhancements, knowledge of best powers, best power pools: Durability: ★★★★☆ Damage: ★★★★☆ With inventions, pools, epic/patrons pools, incarnates all highly tuned: Durability: ★★★★★ Damage: ★★★★☆ These start as tougher scrappers, with some crowd control options that mean they don't have to chase enemies. With extra power pools layered on, the most defensive armor sets can be as strong as the least defensive tanker sets. With Invention sets built toward survival, brutes can survive as well as tankers AND do close to scrapper damage. Scrapper: On basic Single origin enhancements, with no knowledge of 'best' powers, power pool picks: Durability: ★★☆☆☆- ★★★☆☆ (depending on secondary) Damage: ★★★★☆ Single origin enhancements, knowledge of best powers, best power pools: Durability: ★★★☆☆-★★★★☆ (depending on secondary) Damage: ★★★★☆ With inventions, pools, epic/patrons pools, incarnates all highly tuned: Durability: ★★★★☆ Damage: ★★★★★ Scrappers do good damage, but their lower hitpoints and resistance caps mean some armors will work better than others. Scrappers will always do good damage, and with good boosts to their endurance and procs, they can be amongst the most reliable, continuous single target damage around. Unlike brutes, you will also find yourself having the chase foes down, because none of your attacks will taunt foes. Stalker: On basic Single origin enhancements, with no knowledge of 'best' powers, power pool picks: Durability: ★☆☆☆☆- ★★☆☆☆ (depending on secondary) Damage: ★★★★★ Single origin enhancements, knowledge of best powers, best power pools: Durability: ★★☆☆☆ - ★★★☆☆ (depending on secondary) Damage: ★★★★★ With inventions, pools, epic/patrons pools, incarnates all highly tuned: Durability: ★★★☆☆-★★★★☆ Damage: 👑 Best burst single target damage Stalkers suffer the same as scrappers when it comes to survival, but worse. Some armors just work better than others for their lower survival, and their survival starts way worse. Even the most ideally built stalker survival will only hit the upper scrapper limits. But if you're playing a stalker, survival isn't the top priority: damage is. Even the base stalker can blast a boss faster than almost any scrapper, but stalkers will have extremely limited ways to kill crowds. Top end stalkers' ability to kill a single target fast can only be rivaled by nightwidows. You may have to chase enemies, but if they have time to run, something might be funky. Because many of your tools to survive involve not being seen, certain high-perception enemies may give you WAY more trouble than they seem like they should. So, what do we have? One archetype that can survive with little work, and with even a bit of focus, can walk away from 90% of fights, though boss fights will last a while. The second needs to work a little to get that tough, but gets damage pretty easily. The third gets damage without trying, but has to really try to survive the dangerous fights. The last does the best damage, but has to almost always be super careful, and has all sorts of caveats to their 'best' performances. Having played all the above, both on SO's and with full 'end game' invention shenanigans, the balance is surprisingly good. It just depends what you're aiming for, expecting, and comparing against. Throw in exact power sets or combos, and yeah, there are some bad comparisons to be found. A base willpower/kinetic melee tanker won't compare well to a fully kitted out Energy melee/Ninjitsu stalker. But that's apples to oranges. In general most will be pretty good at doing what they're made to be on that sliding scale of 'tough guy' to 'dangerous person' scale.

here’s a short and potentially argumentative guide: some dom primary and secondaries suck choose a mind/fire or plant/energy and you’ll have a whale of a time don’t try to play it like a scrapper, switch on the brain and think about which enemies need to be mezzed or simply killed use your bloody inspirations get perma dom you have now completed your 11 second guide on dominators

Ah.. expectations. Tanker Survivability 10 -vs- Brute Survivability 8 Tanker primary job = Take aggro hold aggro Brute primary job = Do whatever the F*%# they want How to help your friend: I could speculate that your friend prioritized attacks rather than survival. I could speculate that your friend failed to do any slotting. I could speculate that your friend is not using inspirations and definitely not buying them from contacts. These are pretty common and the game has a way of encouraging players to choose wisely. Just doing any one of the above three would have an impact.

OP: here’s the thing about brutes. They do better ST and small AoE damage than Tanks and are more survivable than Scrappers. Now, there’s a big caveat to both of those things. Tanks get increased AoE size and target caps, so while a brute will out damage them in x2 or maybe even x3 content, and will always out damage them against single hard targets, tanks generally pull ahead in large group situations. This is because tanks used to be in a worse spot than Brutes are now… for the majority of content there was no good reason to pick a Tank over a Brute. Tanks subsequently got buffed. As for survivability compared to scrappers, as I said earlier, Brutes draw more threat than Scrappers. This is what causes them to feel squishier. Brutes, in general, have a harder time in the earlier levels because of where they sit between Tanks and Scrappers. Basically, people expect brutes to be able to tank, but they are only slightly more survivable than scrappers. Then you throw on top of that their ability to peel aggro and you end up face planting.

Octogoat, my namesake

@Snarky is undead, so technically he already met his End.

You asked, so here is some of the behind the scenes magic: Letting a reader fill in some of the blanks or imagine some of the connections can draw them in and can be satisfying subconsciously. It allows the reader a path to make some of the story their own. The 'flavor' we get to bring to a story can be very powerful and immersive. Why can't we read them? Intentionally vague is likely the correct answer. Maybe it implies you could be one of those heroes some day. Are they famous super group leaders? You should start a super group, you could be famous too. Protagonists from yet to be written story arcs? Spandex clad citizens who.. the reader gets to decide. It's your story. Why isn't this fixed with immediate effect? No change is needed. Please don't remove all the flavor from our city. Um, pasty pants, that's "Arcanaville" for statues and such. Cocktail parties, sure, but statues and plaques.. ..at least try and get the spelling of my name correct when the time comes. 😛

If you are using all of the various resources available to you, from inspirations to IO’s to Incarnates, you should never have a character that doesn’t even feel “viable”. Considering what you posted in the SR thread about enhancement slotting, I can confidently say that you are not using all of the various resources available to you yet.

I love learning the story of how Bananiac came to be! Thank you for sharing that with us. I'll tell you how I came to be Midnyte. When Rich and I first starting playing together in 2005, shortly after the CoV expansion, my global name was by default, my first character, "Decanatrix". Many old-timers will remember me as a clumsy, bumbling dominator who died a lot. Not only was it my first MMO, but I chose a difficult AT as an introduction to that! But I persevered with her, and made friends villain-side in the game (who kept me alive LOL). But somewhere along the way, I made a hero to play with some friends hero-side, and I discovered the beauty of dark melee scrapper. She was Midnight's Shadow, my first L50 hero. I got a reputation for having characters with midnight or moonlight or any night/celestial theme in the name, and got teased about it quite a bit back then. 😄 Then a few years went by and I was playing other MMOs concurrently and was playing Warhammer Online quite a bit. My main on there was a witch elf named Midnyte, and it somehow became my brand. So in CoH, I renamed my global from Decanatrix to Midnyte, this was around 2010 or 2011. From then on, it's just always been my name in any game I play. Edit to add: Consider this my signup for Midnyte - Dark/WP Brute for the anniversary celebration 😄 2nd edit: I found a pic in my Dropbox account of my Witch Elf in Warhammer Online. Here she is. Wow, I still miss this game.

*Catsi, worried and concerned about being herded*

I will not set foot in the Galaxy City tutorial until the voices are silenced. The guy screeching in my ear about how I must go help Blue Spectrum .... it's not pleasant.

Needs more cats! 🤣

cat herding, classic

Hither Tither (Elec/Radiation Stalker) ..and one of my new 'top 10 funnest' characters.

Socially acceptable power leveling. This and the Halloween event need to be shorter.

Eat a bag of semantics